Posted On: Jun 10, 2021

The latest query engine for Amazon Athena is generally available in all 24 AWS Regions where Athena is available. Customers who use Athena engine version 2 benefit from new features and performance enhancements that make analyzing data easier and more cost-effective than before. 

New features in Athena engine version 2 allow you to do more with your data. Federated Query expands the reach of your data lake by allowing you to query data sources stored on premises or in the cloud using easy to deploy connectors. With User Defined Functions (UDF) you can apply custom functions to mask sensitive data, leverage other AWS services to translate data, and more. Athena’s integration with Amazon SageMaker allows users to generate predictions from their machine learning models and use the results in reporting and dashboard applications. To find location oriented insights from your data, you can leverage an expanded set of native geospatial functions.

Recent enhancements to Athena's query engine help reduce cost and improve query efficiency. New and improved engine behavior for nested data and predicate push-down result in faster queries with less data scanned. Queries using ORDER BY or window functions now benefit from automatic spill-to-disk to reduce out of memory errors. For a detailed list of features and enhancements, see Athena Engine Version Reference.

You can upgrade to Athena engine version 2 with a few clicks in the Athena console. To start your upgrade, see Changing Athena Engine Versions. For a list of AWS Regions that support Athena engine version 2, see Athena engine version 2.